


It's a gesture of non-denominational winter cheer

by bloodandcream



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Holiday Sweaters, Holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-02 23:34:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2830097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodandcream/pseuds/bloodandcream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meg hated this time of year. She hated the fake plastic smiles plastered on everyone’s faces, the obligatory gifting guilt trips, the bell ringers, the cheesy music, the hideous decorations, the gaudy lights, just everything about it. She wasn’t big on holidays period, but Christmas sent her into a holiday induced homicidal rage. At least Ruby didn’t want to decorate their apartment either. Hell, they still had Halloween decorations up. Of course, those stayed up all year so she wasn’t sure they could count as Halloween decorations any more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's a gesture of non-denominational winter cheer

As October came to a close, Meg realized that she had been working for Main Street Gourmet for a little over half a year. It was the most stable, respectable job that she’d ever had. She had moved up quickly too, from entry level data processing for orders to a nice position in the accounting department. She had an office, an actual walled in office with a desk and a leather swivel chair. The first day she was given her office, she had closed the door and twirled in the chair for five minutes.

It was kind of boring, but it was good work. They were a small company, made from the ground up, that made batter for dessert items and shipped all over the country to restaurants and bakeries, businesses large and small. She may have put on a little weight since she started there, with the mistake batch cookies sitting in the break room for all to take. Okay, she put on about twenty pounds already. She could still rock a pencil skirt.

Meg could definitely afford her own apartment now. But she knew that her roommate, Ruby, wouldn’t be able to afford their shared apartment on the income she made as a cashier at the porn store. Besides, Meg wanted to stay on her good side for the discount. And who else would she whine to about the hot new guy that started in the shipping/receiving department.

One Castiel Shurley. He came off like a jackass at first - quiet, aloof, too serious. Totally Meg’s type. He was technically under Meg - in the corporate ladder - and fraternizing with subordinates was a big no no. They were however in different departments, so really, it’s not like he was her direct subordinate. In the company. She wouldn’t mind him being subordinate in other ways.

She spent November lingering around his cubicle and watching him in the break room. It was totally not creepy. She wasn’t stalking. Just … taking an interest in how a fellow employee was adjusting to his new position. Even though she didn’t really talk to him or do anything other than glare. Lots of people had told Meg throughout her life that she was intimidating. Castiel, he stared back.

His immaculately pressed suit jacket and slacks were eventually peeled away in the office casual environment. Plenty of people wore button downs, but jeans were common too, and just about no one wore a suit jacket. Meg liked it when he rolled his shirt sleeves up as the heat kicked in for winter; it was always turned up too warm. She near about did a double take when she passed him the hall the first time he was wearing a waist coat. 10/10, would bang.

It did not escape Meg’s notice that when she wore a pencil skirt - increasingly rare as her ass plumped even more - that he tended to look away very suddenly when she turned around to find him behind her. She made sure to change the copier paper more frequently.

He was an interesting puzzle, slowly changing and adapting to the office. She saw him smiling more as he presumably became more comfortable around the other employees. Meg didn’t tend to make friends easily. He seemed shy, any more, rather than purposefully closed off. She still didn’t approach him directly. Office place romance could be a sticky sort of thing - and not in the fun way - when it turned sour.

She had almost - almost - decided that asking him out for drinks was a good idea when the first of December rolled around, and her opinion of him changed completely. The very first day of December, he showed up at the office in a fuck ugly Christmas sweater.

It wasn’t just a generic red or green sweater with some kind of decal or whatever on it. It had little bells hanging off the hem, a riot of decoration prints across the front, and a puffy neck line. It was hideous. And he wore another the day after, and another, and another.

Everyone started decorating their offices and cubicles. There were miniature trees on desks, tinsel taped along door frames, little nativity sets, paper cut out Santas and snow men. Meg felt like she might barf. So long as they didn’t start pumping Christmas music through the office, she could at least hide in the neutrality of her office like the fucking Switzerland of holiday’s.

Meg hated this time of year. She hated the fake plastic smiles plastered on everyone’s faces, the obligatory gifting guilt trips, the bell ringers, the cheesy music, the hideous decorations, the gaudy lights, just everything about it. She wasn’t big on holidays period, but Christmas sent her into a holiday induced homicidal rage. At least Ruby didn’t want to decorate their apartment either. Hell, they still had Halloween decorations up. Of course, those stayed up all year so she wasn’t sure they could count as Halloween decorations any more.

So she avoided going out during December, hid in her quiet apartment, and dodged cheerful people at work. Hers was the only office that was not being decorated in some fashion.

Then little holiday decorations started showing up on her desk.

The first was a wooden reindeer with a red pom pom nose. She didn’t have it in her to throw it out, if the giver would want it back maybe, so she tossed it in the bottom of a filing drawer. The next day a sparkly Santa figurine showed up. It joined the reindeer in dark metal hell. A plushie snow man with a red scarf and black button eyes was on her desk the next day. Meg had liked making snow men with her brother as a child. Still, it was a matter of principle so she tossed it in with the rest. Then little porcelain figurines of a nativity set gathered in succession several days in a row.

Meg was fairly certain she knew who was behind this. Castiel, with his stupid sweaters and his massive fucking grin that crinkled his eyes because he was in a state of perma frozen cheer for the whole month apparently, and his elaborately decorated cubicle. Not to mention the way he looked at her with those big blue eyes that made her turn corners too sharply so she wouldn’t run into him and have to listen to him sing carols or something.

It was sickening.

Several weeks in to December, she couldn’t take it anymore. She went over to his cubicle and leaned against the cloth wall with her arms folded over her chest and glared at him until he finished the document he was typing and swiveled his chair around to look at her. He was wearing a large red sweater with reindeer prancing across it.

"Okay, you seem to be taking it upon yourself to shit Christmas all over this office. Are you the one that’s been leaving crap on my desk everyday?"

Maybe that came out a little harsh, Meg thought when his expression turned suddenly crestfallen.

"I have been."

"Well stop."

"Why?"

"What do you mean why?"

"Don’t you like Christmas?"

"No."

Meg was glaring at him. Castiel fidgeted with the hem of his sweater before he turned his eyes up and his mouth curved in an ‘o’.

"Oh gosh, I’m so sorry, are you Jewish?"

"No, I’m a Satanist."

He actually gasped audibly, looking scandalized for about a second before his forehead creased and he asked, “Wait, if you believe in Satan, doesn’t that mean you believe in God, so you should believe in Jesus too.”

"I don’t believe in Satan, or God."

Castiel frowned at her. “What do you believe in?”

"Myself. Look, there’s different versions of the religion, like there is for pretty much every fucking religion, but for me basically it’s about finding your own strength. It’s not like I eat babies or cast spells on people or anything."

"Oh."

He still seemed utterly confused.

"I just don’t fucking like Christmas. You can be as holly jolly as you want, but keep it out of my office."

"But, you don’t have to be religious to like Christmas. It’s about spending time with your family and giving gifts, and celebrating the year."

"It’s a twisted holiday that basically ripped off pagans, and any more it’s just a materialistic excuse to be selfish dickbags."

Castiel shook his head. “Not everyone is selfish. Isn’t it nice giving things to the people you love?”

"I don’t need commercial America to tell me when and what to give to the people I love."

"But, it’s such a happy time of the year."

"It’s fucking annoying."

Castiel looked like she’d just kicked his puppy. It kind of made her feel bad. Honestly, people could celebrate whatever they wanted to celebrate. She just hated having it shoved in her face all the time, and the defilement of her non-denominational neutral space with holiday cheer was crossing a line.

"I apologize, I will leave the Christmas cheer out of your office."

"Thanks."

Meg stared him down for a minute, before turning sharply and exiting his cubicle. She got whapped in the face with a foil garland on her way out.

For the next week, nothing made an appearance on her desk and Castiel quietly nodded at her in the hallway. She was still surrounded by the despicable holiday, but she had her little protective bubble in tact. No one else fucked with her in an attempt to bring out her non-existent holiday cheer. It was nice.

On the twenty third of December, Meg arrived at work to find a package on her desk. It was bulky, wrapped in tissue paper with a wide red silk ribbon tied around it. She rolled her eyes and considered dumping the thing on Castiel’s desk. But this wasn’t like the other little holiday trinkets he’d left sitting out on her desk. It was wrapped. She really didn’t want to have any interest in it, but she couldn’t deny that it piqued her curiosity.

Closing the door, she sat down and untied the ribbon. Inside the tissue paper was a black sweater folded up. Pulling it out and holding it up, Meg stared in awed shock at the gift. It had that generic sort of white snow flake ish looking border at the top and bottom, but in the middle, there was Rudolph the reindeer’s head shaped like the traditional goat to fit into an upside down pentagram.

It was a fucking Satanic Christmas sweater.

Meg bent over laughing so hard she felt a tear trickle down her face. This asshole just did not quit. Meg could respect that. She really wanted to know where he even got the thing. But she wasn’t sure how to approach him without being a snarky bitch, so she avoided him for the day.

When she got home that night, she washed the sweater in the bathtub because she didn’t have enough laundry to take a load to the laundromat.

She kind of wanted to do something for him. Not like, Christmasy holiday something. Just a thank you. Because he clearly put some effort in. And it was ridiculous, but it was a sweet gesture.

Her black little heart was still clearly as wretched as ever, thank you very much.

Meg made cookies. She liked baking cookies, everyone liked cookies, people made cookies all year round. She rolled and cut the basic sugar cookies into three different sized circles and made snow men out of them. Meg didn’t have any cookie cutters in Christmas themed shapes. But snowmen were easy. And non-denominational.

Ruby mocked her. That bitch.

Meg still gave her the batter bowl to lick out. Even though she just sat on the counter in her underwear kicking her heels against the cupboard and cackling. Ruby didn’t even help ice the little snowmen.

The next morning, Meg put on her cutest pencil skirt with a thin pin stripe pattern that hugged her curves. She fixed up a pair of back seam sheer black thigh highs with a garter belt. And put on the Satanic Christmas sweater. It actually fit pretty nicely, and it was comfy.

When she walked into Castiel’s cubicle with the platter of cookies, he took one look at her and broke into the widest smile she’d seen on his face. It was disgusting - adorable - no, pathetic.

"Where did you even find this abomination?"

"On the internet. Do you like it?"

She plopped the plate of cookies down on the desk in front of him.

"Did you .. make cookies for me?"

"Everyone likes cookies."

Castiel took a cookie out from under it’s saran wrap barrier, studying it a moment before declaring, “It’s a gesture of non-denominational winter cheer. I appreciate it very much, thank you Meg.”

Meg shrugged and turned to leave, but paused instead to ask, “Do you want to get a drink after work?”

Castiel was still smiling at her. “I would love to, but I’m going to midnight mass later with my family.”

"You’re such a tree topper."

"How about coffee?"

"Coffee sounds good too. Come by my office after five."

Meg hid her smile until she rounded the corner. When she got back to her office, she dug around in the filing cabinet until she found the little plushie snow man. That, she set on the corner of her desk, and started her work day.


End file.
